Open Access

Simon Wieninger, Rafael Götzen, Gerhard Gudergan, Kai Michael Wenning

• In the course of the advancing digitalization, new business fields are characterized by a mixture of competition and cooperation of the actors involved. MOORE (1993) postulates that in analogy to natural ecosystems, long-term successful companies also operate in comparable network structures. In this context, there are pronounced controversies about the extent to which there are leading actors in such a business ecosystem and to what extent they can control the entire system. Similarly, it is largely unclear where the boundaries of a business ecosystem actually lie and how meaningful selective boundaries are. Especially the extent of the coopetition proves to be characteristic for the relationship between the involved actors. Therefore, the aim of this research approach is to develop a new approach for the analysis of corporate ecosystems. To ensure applicability, the developed approach was validated in a current case study in the telecommunications industry.